Page 12 of Cruel As A Tree (Chaos God Sugar and Spice Companion Shorts #4)

Chapter

Ten

LILLIAN

T he bark shimmered metallic in the glimmering light of the rising sun.

It was hard to see unless I looked at it from the corner of my eyes.

When I stared at the trunk of the tree directly, it looked normal, the same crackled brown as the oak in my neighbor's yard, if a tree that took decades to grow could look the same as a grove that appeared in under a week.

At least, that was what my mom said had happened.

That whole time I thought Lorthion just ditched me at his forest treehouse; he had instead portaled to the Mortal Realm, found my family, and planted a grove of trees from his forest that allowed me to walk right out of his place and back to my own.

I'd spent the last month just hanging out with my family.

Anne was going to start school in the fall, and I spent every day with her, taking her to the park and working on craft projects until we were sticky and there was a mess everywhere.

My heart was full except for this one nagging ache that wouldn't go away.

I had to see if I could get back.

"If you run at it, you're just going to bounce off," my mom said.

"That's what I did!" Anne exclaimed. One of the afternoons at the house, she had vanished into the backyard and come back crying with a bruise on her head.

She couldn't go through the portal. I went to check it and my hand had vanished into the tree without issue, so there was a good chance it was only open to me.

"I'm not a wizard mom," I said. "I'm not trying to get to the school either. I need to say thank you to the fae that rescued me."

"I thought you weren't supposed to thank fae," my mom said. "Or is that just elves? I get confused about the two of them."

"I think fae is more of a blanket term and not saying thank you is impolite," I said. "The whole idea that you have to be rude to avoid owing favors is dumb. If someone does something nice for you, there is no obligation at all."

"Then why go back and say thank you at all?" my mom countered.

"Stay," Anne said, tugging on my wrist, her small hands tightening around it.

"For one, my familiar is still there," I said.

"And for two, I want to go back. I feel like I can help the others if I go back.

I don't think I'll get stuck there again.

Lorthion wouldn't have gone through all the trouble to grow this grove here so I could come and go if he didn't mean for me to be able to use it. "

"He isn't human," my mom said. "You can't attribute human characteristics to monsters."

"Lorthion isn't a monster!" Anne gasped. "He is nice! He planted trees!"

"I will come back after I talk to him and thank him," I said. "I'll be home for dinner."

"Let your sister go," my mom grimaced slightly around the word sister as she always did. "Come now, Anne, why don't we plan a super special dinner for when she gets home?"

"I'm going to make cupcakes!" Anne shouted, and turned and ran back into the house.

"I just need to make things right," I said.

My mom lifted an eyebrow at me. "He was rather handsome for a fae."

"He is a shapeshifter of some sort," I said. "He looks the way he wants to look."

As I said the words, I wasn't entirely sure if they were true.

"I wonder what he looks like when he is around you," my mom said.

Her smile grew bigger. "You know, he was rather nice to spend time with.

Quite polite and the fact that he was willing to put in such hard work to bring you back home.

.. you should have seen the effort it took for him to grow the trees here.

He looked utterly exhausted by the time he was done.

I wouldn't be surprised if he went and took a good nap after that. "

I'd found him sleeping in the forest, right next to the portal tree he had set up for me to use.

"You should see if he wants to join us for dinner," my mom said. "He was so good with Anne and all."

"You just told me not to go thank him because he was a monster." I rolled my eyes at her.

"Just because he is a monster doesn't mean he can't be a good man," she replied, giving me that look that I knew too well and hated.

"There is nothing wrong with finding a good man after all.

Your father was a good man, bless his soul, and you know that he would want you to find someone who can keep you safe as well as help you get where you want in life.

If you had someone like this Lorthion fellow around, do you think you would have ended up being trapped there? "

"I think having a government that is open and honest about there being another world filled with magic that we can reach through a portal and issuing travel advisories would have prevented me from getting caught up in that school," I said.

"Still," my mom said. "See if he will come to dinner."

"I will," I said, and stepped through the tree.